Also, assume that no one else on the team gets paid as it's all bootstrapped.
The risks involved in seed-stage, pre-revenue private company shares are spectacular. Management can and usually will drastically reduce the value of early shares throughout the life of the company. That risk is over and above the fact that your company will, like all startups, likely fail.
You didn't say this, but let's assume you're talking about developers: they bill $100/hr. You're trying to sell them shares for "maybe as little as" $1000 a week. The answer to that problem is: "give them a lot of shares".
The easier answer, which will work better than equity, is to open source.
Explain, please.
I know someone who is about to start some sw development work for a local startup for equity. The company is getting ready to sell their first product, and he told me that his plan is to try working for them for eight weeks and see if they can actually sell their product. If not, he's planning to quit. He's been totally up-front about this with the founders and they're ok with that. So a creative strategy like that might work.
If you looking for an "employee", without willing to pay, then good luck finding a sucker.
When it comes to recruiting, I think the answer lies in speaking candidates' language (if it's a business guy, remind him that startup experience looks great on a resume; for developers, make sure they know you appreciate the importance of their role to the success of your project). I think it's most important for the latter that they believe they'll do important work and feel appreciated... it's regretable so many of them have had bad experiences with crappy employers, but you can use that history to your advantage by setting yourself apart from it.
The rest is details: Write up a job description using your best Ogilvyian copy (reference copyblogger.com). Headlines matter.
I also suggest you use a triangulation strategy when you talk about compensation. I approached it by offering candidates their option of 1) $2500, 2) $1500 + 8% equity, or 3) 40% equity. On its own the 40% arrangement wouldn't have stirred much interest, but set against the backdrop of the other two options it looked like a great opportunity. I designed it that way deliberately with favorable results.
Hope this helps.
http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/12/is-there-more-to-li...
For example, consider you work 40 hrs a week and you want me to work 10 hours a week, for simplicity sake. Since I'm working 25% as much as you I'd expect 25% the equity that you have. So if its you and a partner with 50% stakes working 40 hrs each ontop of my 10 hrs then I'd expect 9% of the company because that's how much of the effort I'm contributing.
Generally, you're going to have a hard time recruiting people that are going to be doing more work initially than you are going to be doing. I.E. a non-hacker trying to recruit a hacker to do some coding will have a tough time.
BTW - Part-time isn't necessarily attractive. It only works for folks who have a hole in their schedule. You might get more takers for temp than part-time.
That's easy. Just make sure the the "shares" you're offering them are shares in Google! ;-)
i'd be willing to do work for shares if i believed in the model. hell, i AM working on a startup with someone i didn't know beforehand because i personally believe that the project will become extremely profitable.